High-profile Hinduja family embroiled in human trafficking and labor exploitation allegations, shedding light on modern slavery practices.
The Hinduja family faced serious human trafficking and labor exploitation charges, highlighting the ongoing issues of modern slavery and labor abuse in high-profile cases.
A matter of days, the entrepreneurial family Hindujas were in news for almost a grave wrong reasons. With an opulent family involved in a case of human trafficking and labor exploitation the matter was hyped in the world media.
Their househelps in their Switzerland villa who happened to be the victims and the complainants charged the Hinduja couple, their son and daughter-in-law with serious allegations against them.
They included underpayment, long working hours, insufficient food and unhygienic lodging in the basement area with no window on mattresses.
Soon after the case began the complainants withdrew the charges. Though the Swiss court continued the case as it included the violation of human rights. The accused were given a sentence of 4.5 years jail imprisonment.
The Hindujas appealed to the high court and finally all the charges against them got resolved. This incident has brought into limelight the serious crimes of human trafficking and labor victimization.
Both these words are a loose connotation of the word slavery.
The practice of slavery has origins dating back to ancient civilizations. For example, the Sumer of Mesopotamia civilization.
Slavery continued through waves of time under the influence of social, economic and at some places the caste system.
The so called slaves were taken to far countries and continents and thus gave rise to a forced migration of the deprived communities. After they were brought to the intended places usually they were subjected to risky work as in minefields without safety measures.
This was perhaps the inception of human trafficking and labor exploitation.
In modern times, slavery is not the term often put to use, but it prevails in the shadows of human trafficking and labor exploitation.
Time after time we get to hear about rich and famous people who are involved in the illegal human trafficking case.
For example, Daler Mehndi was sentenced to a two year jail term by Patiala Court in a 2003 human trafficking case. But after serving two months of imprisonment the term was suspended.
The final verdict of these cases involving influential people is usually a null and void.
Human trafficking is a serious crime that targets mostly the impoverished sections of society. The lack of education leading to lesser awareness among them, precarity, domestic violence faced mostly by the women and children paves the way for the traffickers towards them. They become the soft targets luring them with dreams of making it big in big cities and leading a life of comfort.
Working under the allegory of placement agencies work in a network like formation and usually fix the people as domestic help or in factories, selling the young girls to brothels. Be it low-skilled jobs or the role of domestic helps or the sexual exploitation, the truth is the victims have to face the age-old atrocities , the slaves once had to.
Without proper food, unhygienic accommodation, minimal wages, the long work hours reaching to 18-20 hours a day and no right to contact their families.
Like in the case of the Hinduja family the victims were said to have no right on their money and whatever they were paid were sent to the Indian banks further adding to their woes. Some of the employers snatch phones of the employees to cut off their contact with the outer world.
In India modern labor exploitation has roots rising from the Zamindari System times.
The way the zamindars or the landlords(as they were called during the pre-independence times) transferred the debts of the deceased family members to their family and tethered the bonded labor system from one generation to another.
The traffickers in almostness target the BPL(Below Poverty Line) people and historically marginalized communities. For example, the tribes where the high percentage of illiteracy prevails hitherto.
These are modern days mold of the word slavery and the tools of it are human trafficking and labor exploitation. In the United States 2023 Trafficking Report, India has maintained its Tier 2 position out of the 3 tiers.
This is because of the better law enforcement and the quickness shown in resolving the pending cases since many past years.
Though the road is long and there are several avalanches arriving to eradicate these crimes sprawling like an epidemic.
